THE DIFFERENCE

Simply Put:The Difference Is I Am Different

All of my life I have had the sense I was walking with one foot up on a curb and one foot down on the road.  Ever walked with one foot stepping up on the curb while the other is down on the road?  You walk long enough one foot on the curb and one foot off, and you're back, hips, knees, ankles, and feet will begin to hurt.  The action of walking on such an uneven path is jarring and punishing to the whole body.  It isn't shocking why you'll only ever see children walking with one foot up on the curb and one foot off.  Adults have learned that one foot on the curb and one foot off the curb gets you nothing but pain.  Find a smooth and level path, and not only can you walk with comfort, but you'll find you can run as well.  The way of least resistance is the path all of us find, but that path, if followed to it's end is the road to destruction.   Were I not different I would have died with many of my friends in the late 80's and early 90's who died of AIDS.  I was gay.  Yes I "was" gay, as in, "I once was, but now I am not."   What is the difference between me and the majority of gay people?  I didn't merely settle for what I "felt" to be true about myself.  I wanted cold, hard, concrete facts to support what my feelings told me.  Feelings are often wrong.  My feelings about others had been wrong.  Perhaps the problem wasn't anything to do with anything in the world and the problem might just be with my gay feelings.  Maybe my feelings were broken.  I set off on a ten year odyssey to discover if I was really born gay.  I had no idea the education I'd receive, but it isn't the education I could ever have expected.  My educational journey is one of those experiences which is worth $1 million, but if someone had offered me a million dollars to go on the journey I'd never have taken it.

 

I simply wanted to know if my homosexuality was biologically determined.  After that ten year educational journey I would learn that human sexuality isn't hardwired.  In humans the biology of sexuality works the way biology works for the development of spoken language.  Biology dictates that humans may learn a spoken language.  Biology does not dictate the language we will speak;  biology doesn't dictate that we speak Tamil, English, or Swahili.  Biology only grants the ability.  Biology dictates that we may develop sexuality, but biology CANNOT dictate the language, or more precisely, biology cannot dictate orientation.  It's just the facts folks.  No one is born gay, and just as important; no one is born straight.

 

I'm different, plain and simple.  And would you like to know what sets me apart from the gay people you know?  I didn't choose my gay feelings.  I want to make that absolutely 100% clear:  I DID NOT CHOOSE MY GAY FEELINGS.  But, unlike all the gay people I have known I made the choice to challenge and change those feelings.  God never reached down and took my feelings away.  When my thinking started changing then my actions started changing, and the more I challenged and changed my thinking and my behavior started changing then my feelings started changing.  I didn't do it by myself, God really did all the work I simply did my little part.  I chose to change the way I thought, and changed thoughts brought about changed behavior, and as behavior changed then feelings changed as well.  I didn't choose my gay feelings those were largely the result of what had been done to me.  I didn't even think I had to right to decide anything for myself.  Because my father, basically handed me over to the cruel mental torture my uncle gleefully meted out to me, I settled for feelings which continued my abuse by my own hands.  I was well trained by my abusers, and continued to believe I didn't have a say, didn't have a right, to have my own need for love and belonging.  Others chose to heap cruelty upon me, and I became convinced I was worthless,  no one could love me, and I had no place in this world.  I always lived with the notion that I was an object to be used, and nothing I felt or wanted mattered.  I didn't pull away from people because I feared rejection.  I pulled away from people, because I didn't want to burden them with my loathsome presence.  If I could do something for someone then I could enjoy their companionship for awhile.  It would never last of course.  I never could figure out how to know when my usefulness ended, so I spent most of the time just keeping my distance.  I honestly never minded being used.  When I say that I really mean it.  I never minded being used, it was what I was for after all. 

The Summer of my 8th year I took swimming lessons at the public pool in my town.  One day a boy a couple years older than me stole something from another swim student.  I confronted the boy, telling him, "Stealing is wrong, you can't steal."  He closed the distance between us, glared at me for a moment, and then he spit in my face.  I won't say it was a lot of fun, being spit on, but I fully understood why he spit on me.  I knew from my uncle that spitting on someone was a bad insult, but  I did not feel insulted.  The boy had the right to react the way he did.  I'd upset him.  If he hadn't stolen I would never have bothered him.  If he had chosen to throw me in the pool instead of stealing, I'd have been completely okay with that.  I was merely an object to be used as anyone liked.  I wasn't a real boy, couldn't have anything real, and that included relationships.  I would never have chosen to feel gay, but being an object certainly lead me to those feelings.  There was a real living, needy, empty souled boy, but he'd been completely locked away, and the empty thing was left behind.  No love could penetrate, and that is the way it was supposed to be.  I had been convinced by my users/abusers I was a thing for their use and abuse.  The need for belonging and loving never goes away, but you can't expect those things; you don't have even the right to expect those things.  I was locked away in a cold empty dark cage inside.  I didn't believe anyone could or would love me, accept me, or want anything to do with me, unless I was some use.  So I settled for something much less than love, acceptance, and belonging.  I settled for intense sexual feelings; the merest crumbs of human kindness.  Homosexuality was a good fit for me, because no one would ever have to get the real me.  I could have sex with guys, and enjoy, vicariously "maleness".  The ironic thing is some of these boys were more girl than a lot of girls I knew.  Still I settled.   I didn't think that what I was doing was using those boys.  I didn't think about it, because subjectively I was an object.  What can an object do, but objectify others?   Every time I had sex I was merely using the other person, and I was being used.  This was my life.

When Christ came to find me, he offered me something I'd never had...worth.   He didn't reach into his pocket and pull out a pricing gun and raise my price a couple of dollars.  Jesus offered me his own value.  He took all my worthlessness, and gave me all his worth.  I didn't deserve it, but Jesus never asked or demanded I be worth it.  All Jesus wanted was to free me so I could be in relationship with him.   The difference between me and other gay people?  I chose to accept all Christ offered, and that included freedom from me, my prison, my worthlessness, my state of being a thing to be used and abused.  I chose to believe Christ over any of my own feelings.   The difference between me and others who are or have been same-sex attracted is I let Jesus into the dark, and allowed him to lead me out.  It was a long and difficult thing.  It is very difficult to become someone when all you've ever been is some thing.  There were many times I wanted to turn back, because I still didn't have any evidence I was someone.  God doesn't give up, and I'm thankful for that.  God keeps at it until he gets into us and gets us out of that darkness.  It is easier to settle, but God never allows his children to settle.  As my thinking has changed my actions have changed.  As my thinking changes and my actions change, then my feelings change as well.  The gay feelings never went away I simply grew out from under them.  Homosexuality isn't a state of being.  Homosexuality is a blockage to freedom, life, wholeness, and someoneness. 

 

I am completely different, because I will only settle for Christ.